The Decision

Yesterday was big decision day. After being a family with a car and a van - and four bicycles that were largely unused - we started thinking about our vehicular future. The prompt was my husband's new motorbike. He's a motorbike rider from way back and, now that we live in a city (and the kids are older), he decided to buy a motorbike again and ride to work each day. That decision led to a discussion about what to do about the car and van. He drove the car. I drove the van. Neither vehicle is worth a great deal of money, but the van has proved extremely useful over the years - carrying sports teams and gear, holiday gear, furniture, garden waste and the paraphenalia of my elderly mother.

With petrol prices going up and up - and no sign of that reversing - I have already been investigating the bus routes around the city and doing a small amount of bicycle riding. Bikes and buses were my sole form of transport for many years. I didn't get a licence to drive a car until I was about 25 - and that was only because I had to in order to get a place at journalism school. With young children, it wasn't very practical to ride a bicycle. And buses were unheard of in our small town. In fact, the only buses my daughter had ever ridden were the kind used on school outings with classmates. So you can understand her confusion when we took our first city bus ride about six weeks ago and no one was singing!

Anyway, back to the big decision. I have been toying with the idea of bussing and biking for a while. But road blocks kept appearing to stop me in my tracks (interesting use of metaphor there). I studied my van use informally over a month and discovered that almost all of my trips involved transporting one of the children to school or a sporting event, or taking my elderly mother shopping or to a medical appointment. Buses and bikes didn't seem to fit with any of that. Perhaps I wouldn't be able to follow my pedalling dream after all.

Then yesterday's discussion about whether to keep the car or van got me thinking again. And I decided to risk everything and make a radical call. I would forego the use of van or car for two weeks, in order to see if it could be done. When I spoke the thought out loud, it was met with a mixed reaction - but the overall feeling was why not give it a try? It will give us an idea one way or the other about the sensibility or otherwise of that option.

In the hours after my decision, I moved from feeling freer and happier and excited about the challenge, to stodgy and stuck. Negative thoughts pervaded my normally optimistic brain. How would we get to volleyball? How much time would this take out of our already busy lives? What if this rain never stops? Would my son cope with catching two buses to and from school - along with a heavy school bag and a full cricket bag in tow?

For now, those questions remain unanswered. I didn't need to go anywhere yesterday and the insistent rain made biking unlikely. Today the weather looks slightly better and there are a few options for trying out buses and bikes which may or may not eventuate. My son says he's fine with bussing to school, but am I fine with it? Time will tell. My daughter is excited by the prospect as she hates the van and loves bussing and biking. My husband is largely unaffected and views the whole scenario with his usual "wait and see" approach.

So, that's it. We'll wait and see. And hope for a good outcome.